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Crundwell lawyer: No further appeals

Prison release date is March 5, 2030

Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell in a photo taken at the Boone County Jail, where she had been held since being sentenced Feb. 14 to 19 years, 7 months in prison for wire fraud.

Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell will not further appeal to have her prison sentence reduced.

Paul Gaziano, her federal public defender, said this week that Crundwell won’t appeal her sentence – 19 years, 7 months – to the full 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or to the U.S. Supreme Court, which wouldn’t have to consider the appeal.

When Crundwell was sentenced last year for stealing nearly $54 million from the city over two decades, the judge ruled that she must serve 85 percent, or more than 16 years, of the prison term. When Crundwell is freed, she will be subject to 3 years of federal supervision.

In November, a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago unanimously affirmed the sentence, calling it “substantively reasonable.”

Gaziano had appealed Crundwell’s sentence on the grounds that it varied too far from the sentencing guidelines and that more merit should have been given for the former comptroller’s cooperation with authorities after her arrest.

Thursday marked the 2-year anniversary of Crundwell’s arrest at City Hall. She was sentenced Feb. 14, 2013.

Crundwell is serving her sentence in Waseca, Minn., in a low-security prison that houses 1,058 female inmates.

She is allowed to have up to 10 books or magazines “neatly stored” on a shelf in her cell, according to the prison’s handbook.

Her clothes – green pants, green shirts, coats and jumper dresses – have labels with her name, inmate number and laundry number. Sweatshirts can be worn, according to the handbook, as long as they are worn over one of the facility’s green shirts.

Crundwell can have no more than 25 personal letters in her cell and can have 25 loose photographs, according to the handbook. Any additional photographs must be in a photo album and stored in her assigned locker.